Mrs. Jernigan's AP Class discussion
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The Sun Also Rises
Post 2: Chapters 7-12
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Bill is saying that Jake is essentially unhappy with his home. An expatriate is basically a foreigner or someone who lives in a different country. This term applies with other characters in this novel and the rest of the Lost Generation through the common uneasiness and dissatisfaction that overwhelms their "homes". No one in the "Lost Generation" seems content with where there are and constantly search for a place to fulfill them.
Actually I wasn't sure on what an expatriate was until Spencer said that it was another word for a foreigner. And that makes a lot of sense. A foreigner is not just unfamiliar or new, but they seem out of place and tend to be lost. They just don't belong. When you add this into the context of the book, Bill accuses Jake of being this foreigner who can't live properly because he's so out of place. Jake is too busy talking that he forgets to work; he's too busy drinking himself to death that he can't find anybody. He lives someone else's expectations and that is why he doesn't quite fit in. But that was the times. That generation. There was always some expectation that you had to fill; no reward, just another day of distractions. Another day as an expatriate.
On page 120 Bill says to Jake, "You're an expatriate...Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate." In calling Jake an expatriate, Bill is addressing the position of the Lost Generation in modern Europe. An expatriate is someone who is withdrawn from their native land. Bill categorizes the Lost Generation as people who have completely withdrawn from the culture of their area. Their detachment and apathy lead them to be basically dead weight in the European culture. Hemingway was presenting a popular criticism of the Lost Generation through this dialogue between Bill and Jake.
An expatriate is someone who resides or claims a country that is not their "own" which is characterizing of the lost generation because they do not claim much nationalism. With the war tearing Europe and the world apart they have been left with this generation of just wanderers/non "go getters" because they do not feel particularly motivated or excited about anything besides mundane things such as, as previously discussed, drinking.
(and the rest of the Lost Generation).